


Ghost of Yesterday

by navaan



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Companions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Goodbyes, Immortality, Kissing, M/M, Tenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 11:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13075467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: AroundEnd of Timethe Doctor visits a future Jack. It's never the end with the both of them.





	Ghost of Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shivver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shivver/gifts).



Jack had met the Doctor thousands of times. With his factness and the Doctor's Time Lord longevity it wasn't at all surprising that their paths would cross time and again, just as their timelines became an entangled mess of crossroads just by living and travelling through time.

He vaguely remembered that in their beginning – in their _very_ beginning – there had been a grinning face with sparkling eyes, a man with a black leather jacket and big ears looking at the world with a child like joy that hid a deeper loneliness and sadness. He had seen him again, that Doctor - alone once, but with lovely Rose at his side at least a few times more. 

Of course, he had not revealed himself to them and he still remembered hat the first time having to see and stay away from them had torn his heart. The distance of time, the experience of age and the acceptance of immortality made it easier to feel the complicated emotions he felt for these people even after all these years and not act on them.

So like a few times before, he had watched as the Doctor and Rose had passed him in the distance, had seen the slight frown on the Doctor's - _his first Doctor's_ \- features – and had realized the moment when the Doctor had noticed something was off. But Jack had made sure that he wasn't close to them long enough to make the Doctor too curious about Jack's existence. 

_Too early, Doctor,_ he thought and grinned. _You'll meet me soon enough._

Meeting that particular Doctor now would be an unforgivable transgression, an impossibility, a paradox that might change everything and maybe one day, when he was old and grey and done with this universe he might be crazy enough to risk it. But not today.

Quietly he slipped away before he could be discovered.

He'd become quite good at it.

With the years it had become harder to conceal his existence from the Time Agency – and boy did he have no intention of getting on their radar ever again. He knew too much about their methods and goals, had done too much he didn't want to remember in their name.

For years it had been easy enough to walk from existence to existence, unchanging, never giving up his stolen name, keeping in or out of sight as it suited him. But not only Time Lords could sense that Jack presented an anomaly. And many races strove to find immortality. Jack seemed like the perfect price for too many of them.

Once again his life had become one where watching his back at all times was necessary.

He turned away to return to his little time ship, letting the Doctor and Rose slip from his line of sight and and back to the realm of memory.

Time to go travelling again to forget about this little melancholy glimpse of the past.

This time he could do it with a smile.

Before he even reached the ship he sensed the presence of someone hanging around near the hatch. He'd made sure the ship was invisible and hard to track, but he knew of one or two pursuers who might be able to track it anyway. To be on the safe side he pulled his blaster and slowed his steps.

There was nothing more unpleasant than being shot in the head and waking up on a dissection table, as he knew from painful experience. Nobody could blame him for playing it safe. He made sure to sneak closer and get a good view of the area before he walked out into the open.

There, leaning casually against the wall of an invisible ship, was a man with messy brown hair and a long brown coat. 

Another very familiar face sprung up right from his memories.

He looked good.

God, he always missed him.

“Doctor!” he exclaimed.

The man looked up and studied him. “Jack, Jack, Jack,” he said, “I think this is a non-parking area. No respect for the rules, you. Will you ever change?”

“You know me,” Jack said and smiled, a real smile. Here, right in front of him was another piece of his past making itself part of his present – in the flesh and looking good. He hadn't seen this Doctor since... since this Doctor had come to pass him a note about a handsome midshipman in a bar. 

That had been...

...thousands of years ago.

And yet the memory had never faded.

The Doctor's brown eyes had been so sad.

Even Jack had realized then that this had been a sort of goodbye, delivered with some finality.

He took in the Doctor's expression now and realized _this was before_ ; before he'd come to say goodbye.

“I know you, Jack, yes,” the Doctor said and he sounded like that had a deeper meaning. “I was just passing by when I heard a story about an immortal coming to town every so often and then hiding away again. Knew it was you.”

Jack raised an eyebrow and waited for the rest of that story.

It being the Doctor, he shouldn't have expected it. “How long has it been for you, Jack?”

“Five minutes,” he said and gave him a lopsided grin. “Although that didn't really count.”

The doctor narrowed his eyes and thought about. “Me and Rose,” he said, remembering when he'd been in the area, and his eyes became a darker shade like all warmth from the expressive brown eyes bled into the shadows and was gone. This Doctor's face, his eyes had always been like that. A recent Doctor had a face that never gave anything away and it was a startling contrast. Jack loved the contradictions. Then the Doctor's gaze settled back on Jack and the darkness didn't really leave his gaze.

“I could solve your little problem Jack. If you'd want me to. Set it right. Take it away.”

The words were harsh and even the tone of voice wasn't gentle, but not in the usual unthinkingly callous way the Doctor sometimes had. 

“I am a fact now, Doctor,” Jack said, past his suddenly dry throat. “There's no problem. It just is.”

The Doctor blinked as if Jack's words pulled him from the darkness suddenly.

“Good,” the Doctor said softly. “Good. Did enough damage as it is.”

And that was when Jack realized that this was _the_ Doctor. The Doctor right before the end, before the goodbye.

It had been too many years for Jack to remember the exact details, the exact emotion of what Jack had been feeling for the Doctor at the time when this had been _his_ Doctor. Right now none of that mattered. He stepped forward and pulled the man into a hug, holding him tight and burying his face in his hair. “What did you do, you mad man? What exactly did you do?”

“Ah,” the Doctor said, awkwardly going still in his arms, not comfortable with the embrace. “Timey-wimey stuff. _You know me._ ” He echoed Jack's words from before and suffered the touch.

And when Jack pulled back to get a better look at his face, it was clear in the man's eyes: He had gone too far. He had done something bad.

“It will be alright,” Jack said.

The Doctor smirked. “When did you become the wise one.”

“I have a few thousand years on you, youngling,” Jack said and didn't mention all the Doctors he'd met _after_. This Doctor doubted the future and the doubt was part of this moment. It wasn't Jack's place to spoil him for what was to come.

The Doctor laughed – and both the sound and the sudden expression of enjoyment put his mind at ease a little. Then the Doctor straightened and patted his shoulder. “Always good to see you, Jack. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.” 

Then he walked away.

Jack looked after him, stunned. “I do plenty of things you wouldn't do,” he muttered. “All the time.”

* * *

He thought that would be his final time meeting that particular regeneration, before that Doctor went on to fight the Master on planet Earth and then came to a bar to say his unspoken goodbye to Jack. He knew, the impish lady-Doctor with the blonde hair had admitted to it at one time, that the Doctor had come, because he hadn't known if there'd be a next regeneration this time.

Even old and wise, Jack could be wrong though and it was part of what made life interesting.

One day the Doctor with the brown messy hair, the long brown coat and the pinstriped suit found him not far from where they'd last met. 

“Keeping the important ones for last,” he said as a preamble. Jack smiled, but didn't say anything. At his age he found the dramatic antics quite charming. He also knew how bad it could be to impart knowledge. So when the Doctor sat down beside him to watch a sunrise on Alpharus Prime, Jack leaned in and kissed him, trying to give him something to easy the anxiety, to distract from the fear of death. 

The Doctor froze.

“Thank you for seeing me,” Jack said. “Through all this life, I'll always remember the Doctor and the Doctors who mattered to me the most. You're always here.” He pointed to his temple.

There was a hint of stunned sadness, before a wall went up behind the eyes and the Doctor nodded, steeling himself for the inevitable departure. This was another goodbye.

Jack idly wondered if this Doctor would pop up a hundred times along his time line to say his goodbye to Jack over and over again.

It was a sad and exciting thought.

He squeezed the Doctor's fingers when the man pulled away.

The Doctor nodded and said: “I'll see you around.”

And Jack was left to wonder whether he was going to Jack's future or past now.

Perhaps from here he'd jump straight back to that moment with Alonso, to a much younger Jack. Perhaps he'd fight a whole war somewhere before ever going back there. One day a Doctor might tell him the whole story.

It was never the end with them – and they'd already had all their beginnings. 

Jack was looking forward to whatever came next.

And the Doctor would too.

When this face had given way to a new one.


End file.
